Youth movement for elephants

Wild Animal Park touts success of its breeding program

Ingadze (top), a 1-year-old male African elephant, plays Thursday with his half-sibling Impunga, a 3-year-old male, at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. Nine African elephants have been born at the park since 2003.
— Eduardo Contreras

Ingadze (top), a 1-year-old male African elephant, plays Thursday with his half-sibling Impunga, a 3-year-old male, at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. Nine African elephants have been born at the park since 2003.
— Eduardo Contreras

The San Diego Zoo took a public relations risk in 2003 when it brought seven elephants from a game reserve in Swaziland to an exhibit at its Wild Animal Park.

It still faces heat from animal-rights groups for the move, but the gamble has clearly paid off in one way: a robust breeding program that zoo officials are touting as a way to help save the imperiled species. Critics say it’s also a moneymaking strategy because young elephants tend to draw many adoring fans.

On Saturday, the Wild Animal Park near Escondido will launch the African Summer Festival to highlight its success in doubling the size of the transplanted Swaziland herd. The celebrations, scheduled to run through Sept. 6, will include acrobats, storytellers and live drum bands. At 11 a.m. each day, visitors can see elephants search for goodies such as hay and leaves hidden in their enclosure.

Three calves have been born this year, bringing the total to nine births since 2003, and a pregnant female is due to deliver early next year. A baby elephant was euthanized in 2008 after it suffered a drug-resistant staph infection.

The overall birthrate is a remarkable achievement, considering that elephants are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity.

“We currently have the most successful African-elephant breeding program in the world outside of Africa,” said Jeff Andrews, associate curator of mammals for the zoo. “People are looking to us to continue leading the way, not just for our benefit but for all those zoos that hold African elephants.”

Animal-rights advocates agree that the park’s record suggests it is a relatively hospitable place for elephants, but they maintain that most elephant enclosures are too tiny. They’re also still upset about the circumstances in which the Swaziland elephants landed in San Diego County.

“The San Diego Zoo is congratulating itself and yes, they have done a great job at breeding — if you consider that a good thing. I don’t know. Do we want more elephants stuck in zoos?” Joyce Poole, co-founder of the advocacy group Elephant Voices, said from her home in Norway.

Poole was among those who protested the Swaziland relocation project in 2003. San Diego Zoo leaders had called it an international rescue program because Swaziland wildlife officials said they had too many elephants and would shoot some of them if new homes weren’t found.

The San Diego Zoo and the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Fla., agreed to take 11 between them. The move was delayed for a few months while animal-rights groups fought it in court. Those opponents said Swaziland’s government was essentially holding the animals for ransom and that there were other options for keeping the pachyderms in Africa.

In 2004, the San Diego Zoo committed to paying $300,000 over a decade to Swaziland’s parks program to pay for poaching patrols, land purchases and related activities.

Roughly 210 African elephants are in North American collections, said Mike Keele, an elephant expert at the Oregon Zoo in Portland. He said it costs about $100,000 a year to keep an adult elephant, including food and medicine.